Gargano

Gargano is a historical and geographical sub-region in the province of Foggia, Apulia, southeast Italy, consisting of a wide isolated mountain massif made of highland and several peaks and forming the backbone of the Gargano Promontory projecting into the Adriatic Sea, the "spur" on the Italian "boot". The high point is Monte Calvo at 1,065 m (3,494 ft). Most of the upland area, about 1,200 km2 (460 sq mi), is part of the Gargano National Park, founded in 1991. It is within the Italian Province of Foggia.

The Gargano peninsula is partly covered by the remains of an ancient forest, Foresta Umbra, the only remaining part in Italy of the ancient oak and beech forest that once covered much of Central Europe as well as the Apennine deciduous montane forestbiome. The Latin poet Horace spoke of the oaks of Garganus in Ode II, ix.

Other tourist attractions include the cathedral, the episcopal palace, the Abbey of Santa Maria of Ripalta and the volcanic rocks dating back to the Triassic Period, known as "Black Stones", as well as the Sanctuary of San Nazario.

The surface features of the ancient karst developed in Mesozoiclimestone. In these, sediment accumulated together with the remains of the local fauna, forming thick layers of reddish, massive or crudely stratified silty-sandyclays, known as terrae rossae ("red soils"). Through the mid-Pliocene, some of these deposits were flooded, probably due to tectonic movement of the Apulian Plate. Others were overlaid by other sediments of terrestrial or freshwater origin. In this way a buried, partially reworked paleokarst originated.

Later, as the ice ages cycle got underway, sea levels sank and the former island was continentalized. In the cool and semiarid conditions of the Early Pleistocene (some 1.8 - 0.8 mya) a second karstic cycle occurred, producing the neokarst which removed part of the paleokarst fill.

Deinogalerix - 5 species of gymnures ("hairy hedgehogs"), among them the giant D. koenigswaldi with a skull of c.20 cm length.(Freudenthal, 1972; Butler, 1980)

Hoplitomeryx - some 5 species of "prongdeer" with five horns and sabre-like upper canine teeth. They ranged from tiny to the size of a red deer, and large and small ones apparently occurred at the same time rather than one evolving from the other.(Leinders 1984, van der Geer 2005, van der Geer 2008)

Mikrotia - 3 or more species of murine rodent. The largest species, M. magna, had a skull 10 cm long.(Freudenthal, 1976, Parra et al., 1999)

Paralutra garganensis - an endemic species of otter. (Willemsen, 1983)

Prolagus imperialis and P. apricenicus - huge endemic pika species- P. imperialis was larger than any other known Prolagus.(Mazza, 1987)

Stertomys - 5 species of dormouse, among them the giant S. laticrestatus (Daams and Freudenthal, 1985) and four smaller species (Freudenthal and Martín-Suárez, 2006)

Hattomys - 3 species of giant hamsters, among them the giant H. gargantua. (Freudenthal, 1985)

Tyto - 2 or 3 species of barn-owls. The largest, T. gigantea, was up to twice as massive as the living eagle-owlBubo bubo. T. robusta was also large; this species and the former were endemic but actually seem to have been chronosubspecies. The supposed remains of the smaller T. sanctialbani found at Gargano are now placed in the widespread Tyto balearica.